“Don’t really understand why there was a need for so many NG scenes though. Anybody has a theory on this?”
What’s NG?
N.G. is the abbreviation used when a scene take is “no good”. The actors had to repeat the same scenes several times as the director was not pleased with them.
Well, aside from allowing the male actor time to attempt to woe the female, i think it’s important because it shows how so much of what we plan turns out differently than the way we planned it. Kiarostami shows that the old adage is true for films and lives: life (and art) is what happens when we are making other plans.
I see! Think they make much better sense to me now! Guess Mrs Shiva’s preparation for the film also illustrates the same point with regards to the country-dress and the blocked-road incidents!
Hmm, could it also mean that the authorities cannot simply dictate an individual’s lives without understanding what is his needs and aspirations? It just wouldn’t work as the individual would simply stop co-operating if the authority was too inflexible.
life (and art) is what happens when we are making other plans—-
Yes, and the director also considers mistakes, sadness, etc. as connected to success and happiness in an important way:
“Happiness and sadness are intricately tied. Beneath any layer of despair, there is hope and a reach out for happiness.At the same time, beneath any kind of happiness there is a layer of anxiety and despair. So I see this as a cycle of life, happiness and despair go with one another and not as separate . . . [the protagonist of Taste of Cherry came to discover that life is beautiful when he was so desperate and exhausted of options. This is not connected to culture, this is a universal phenomenon. Realities generate their own opposite and this must be viewed in a dialectical way. At the depth of sadness one seeks for happiness and at the height of happiness one has to court the reality of sadness.”
http://www.iranian.com/Arts/Aug98/Kiarostami/
wow..that was insightful…thanks for the link Matt.
daffy
I just realized that most of the Iranian films that I saw recently online were films about film making.
They include The Mirror, A Moment of Innocence and Through the Olive Trees.
The Mirror contrasts the little girl’s perceived helplessness on screen and her bubbly personality in reality with a two-part structure.
A Moment of Innocence recreates an incident in the past with the actual characters as directors with a non-linear structure that blurs the distinction between the past and the present.
Through the Olive Trees tells the actual story between the lead actor and lead actress of a film with a straight forward linear structure.
I’ll talk more about what I think of Through the Olive Trees as I only watched it last night.
I loved the off-screen speeches by the lead actor in Through the Olive Trees, the beautiful Z-shaped path that was carved into the mountain and the final scenes! Don’t really understand why there was a need for so many NG scenes though. Anybody has a theory on this?